With the wedding season just a few weeks away, isn’t it that time of the year to indulge in some much coveted silk shopping? You bet it is!Just the mention of ‘silk sarees’ conjures up strong images in one’s mind – six yards of pure silken extravagance, artistic embroidery, bright and beautiful amalgam of colours, traditional and colourful hand woven motifs, lengthy borders of golden zaris. Our obsession with silk sarees isn’t just cultural. It’s emotional too!That is why perhaps, it is of utmost importance to us that the silk saree we get in return is worth the fortune we shell out of our pockets. In short, the silk sarees that we so emotionally invest ourselves in, must be genuine silk. And in case you did not know it already, brace yourself… It might come as a shocker! All the sarees out there with pricey tags that claim to be ‘silk’, might not really be. So how do we tell the real ones from the fake? Sounds difficult

Steps

1

Do a Touch test. This is a quick spot test that one can do especially before buying a silk saree. The idea is to rub the silk with your hands. If you feel warmth on rubbing it, go buy it! It’s real. With artificial or synthetic silk, it is impossible to experience warmth on rubbing. One more thing, real silk sounds like walking on fresh snow. If you don’t know how that is supposed to sound like, go figure!

2

Perform a Wedding Ring Test. If the silk that you are planning to buy is not very heavy, this test is perfect! Genuine silk of lower ply can be easily threaded and pulled through a wedding ring because silk is naturally flexible and smooth. On the other hand, artificial silks would scrunch up and would be impossible to pull through

3

Consider the price. Of course, genuine silk is almost ten times costlier than the synthetic ones. Sometimes the synthetic silk is priced much higher and looks like silk to an untrained eye but mostly low price is a very good indication of its poor quality.

4

Examine the Lustre of the material. Silk is especially known for its lustre. The lustre is usually because of the combination of threads which gives a particular sheen to the material. The colour on the surface appears to change as the angle of the light changes. Artificial silks, however, gives a white sheen no matter what the angle of light falling on it.

5

Look at the Weave. Hand woven silk boasts of uniqueness. There are minor variations in the evenness of the texture which is quite noticeable. But fret not! These are natural and expected. These imperfections are what lend distinction to the product. Machine woven silks look perfect. They are flawlessly even in texture and hence… lacks character! Synthetic fibres look perfect too even though sometimes slight imperfections are deliberately included so that they could pass off as real silk.

6

See if you can perform a Burn Test. This is perhaps the best and most definitive test to find genuine silk. You can take a few threads from the material and burn it with a flame. Genuine silk burns with smell of burnt hair. When you burn the edge of real silk fabric, the flame is invisible and it will stop burning as soon as the flame is removed. The ash produced hence, is black, crispy and brittle. It turns to powder when twisted in fingers.With the artificial silk, it is quite the opposite. When synthetic silk is burnt, there is a flame and smell of plastic. No ash is produced. Needless to say, you might need to exercise caution with this step. You don’t want to end up setting fire to the silk saree showroom. Right?

7

If you really need to know, consider a Chemical Test. If you have a lab with necessary chemicals on the standby, ready for some experimentation, what’s stopping you? For starters, you need:Mix all the below and dip a small piece of silk that you want to test into the solution. Real silk dissolves in a few minutes while artificial silk would not dissolve.

16 grams Copper Sulphate

8 grams Glycerine

1 tablespoon caustic soda

150 cc of water

8

Remember that Old is Gold. The older the silk gets, the more beautiful it becomes. With the fake silk, it is quite the opposite. The fake silk tends to fade with time. But again, it is a better idea to buy a genuine silk rather than end up with a fake one.Now that you are armed with some really good tips for the next silk shopping spree, sleep easy. You are going to get the silk saree you so rightly deserve. And yeah… Don’t forget to take along that lighter as well. Who knows when it might come in handy!

Sources and Citations

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"I couldn't really feel warmth, but it wasn't cool. Ring test worked, but was a garment with lots of French seams, so it stopped at seams For me, the burn test was it! Smelled like burning hair!"..." more- Karuna Mcallister

"I appreciate this article because I deal a lot with silk and it is good to know of an easy test. Thank you so much for taking the time to put it together."..." more- Franki Aston

"Very informative, but written in a slightly lighthearted way. Exactly what I was looking for. The burning test is extremely helpful. Thanks!"..." more- Anonymous

Helped a lot, and thanks. This will be useful for me to educate my customer on FB.
- Anil Chandra